In the microUSB days, there were several handy little power meters you could get that measured the power draw of your phone. I have one in a drawer someplace because most new phones have moved to USB Type-C, rendering that device useless. Now, there's a Type-C power meter available courtesy of Satechi. It's a little more expensive than the microUSB versions were, but it looks slick.

The Satechi Type-C power meter retails for $30, but it's sitting at $25 on Amazon currently. The idea is that you plug this device into your phone and plug the charging cable into the other end (it should also work plugged into the source). The display shows you the live power draw of your phone with volts, milliampere-hours, and amps. It's also compatible with data pass-through for USB 3.1 gen 2. Here's a demo video in which the presenter seems to mispronounce the company's name several times.

Satechi is pushing this device as a way to detect counterfeit chargers, though I'm not sure that's the best use case. It's not like it will alert you to a piece of hardware that breaks spec. It simply lets you track abnormal charging behavior. Maybe that's indicative of bad hardware and maybe not. It might be perfect to test the Pixel fast-charging mystery that David is investigating, though.

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So, basically, this indicates it's charging normally, not enough, or... "oops, sorry, your device just fried." It'd be nice if it queried the device to see what it expected and then blocked excess current. That would be worth $25 or more. But this? This is barely useful at all. I know if it's charging slowly or not. I want to make sure I didn't get some counterfeit cable that's gonna send 45W into my phone when I plug it into a more powerful charger.

Impulse_Vigil

This is still very useful (way better than Ampere etc), and what you're asking for would cost much much more than $25... Google Twinkie or Total Phase, those tools exist but are geared for developers and tinkerers.

JohnnyRockets

Woah. Didn't know USB meters even existed! I was using Ampere to test all my cables. Hmm, I wonder if it's useful to buy this type of device, or just to get new cables... Seems hard to justify haha

Sruly J

I have both.

I use Ampere more often because:

1. Don't need to use an adapter which could affect readout.

2. Easier to look at a widget than at a meter.

JohnnyRockets

I actually just got rid of Ampere a few days ago. It was the #1 culprit as determined by Wakelock Detector. I uninstalled it along with a few other apps and my Nexus 6 battery life has improved significantly. I think Ampere has a good idea in tracking battery life but it ironically sucks a lot of battery life too.

Sruly J

Hmmm.

I rarely use it nowadays due to the fact that I'm using the original cable. It's not like when I used my Nexus 5 and had a pile of microUSB cables.

Will probably uninstall it.

Impulse_Vigil

Using an app (or just, your deviceis screen) will also affect readouts... A well made meter shouldn't, a port adapter definitely would.

Impulse_Vigil

This is way more accurate and less trouble than Ampere. With apps you always need to account for the screen being on or not, what the phone's idle draw rate is, how often the hardware/phone will actually poll, etc. The meters are literally plug and read... It's the equivalent of a KillAWatt for mobile.

JohnnyRockets

Awesome. I have a KillAWatt and love it. I just ordered a usb charge meter (not the one in this article but just a plain USB one).

Ditto. I've been able to reliably measure my Pixel charging at 2A+ off a Type A car charger using an old Portapow meter, glad to now have the same capability on Type C.

Cory S

Those little Micro to C adapters didn't work?

plaisthos

They limit charging to 2A/5V in almost all cases.

Jason

Oh, I need one of these for.... Uhhh.... Well, I just need one of these.

someone755

"Power draw with miliampere-hours."

How exactly are ampere-hours a unit of power draw? If anything coulombs are a unit of charge. Am I missing something?

plaisthos

no, batteries in mah is also nonsense but since we always 3,7V you can calculate the Wh yourself ..

someone755

I don't understand what you're saying. Yes, I can calculate the amount of energy stored in a battery by using the voltage and charge.
My question though, since this is just a power meter, and cannot read battery data, is how the unit of charge is connected to measuring current or voltage.

Michael Carr

This actually reminded me that I've been meaning to get one for my microUSB devices. Any favorites?

pfmiller

Maybe get this one along with some cheap adapters? The future is USB-C, so it might be better to go with that.

Impulse_Vigil

Portapow, the one with the backlit display and the short built in cable. It's slightly less inconvenient than the popular Drok ones in that you need to press that backlight button to see it in the dark, but it's much more convenient in that you can twist it around to see even when you have it plugged into weird angles (like a car charger) and without introducing additional cables (and margin of error).

My old 2.0 Drok doesn't seem to work well with my Pixel and the stock A to C cable either, whereas the Portapow does, but I have a really old revision of the Drok so I wouldn't make much of that. Just bought the Satechi one too.

useless? mine works very well with a simple adapter, not that it's normally an issue but on this platform news and information should be spread more carefully, after all it's neither economically nor environmentally meaningful to throw hardware away with no good reason and an usb adaptor is anyways a good thing to have during transition times.